


Lavender's Blue

by blackmetaldahlia



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: College, Fluff without Plot, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Synesthesia, kind of, vaporwave and nightcore are discussed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmetaldahlia/pseuds/blackmetaldahlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt has his music color coded, and Foggy thinks that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard Matt say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lavender's Blue

Matt has his music color coded, and Foggy thinks that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard Matt say. “Look I know my memory’s not the best, but I can remember that you’re blind,” he protests as he clicks through Matt’s iTunes too fast for JAWS to keep up. “Is that vaporwave? Holy shit, you make fun of me for listening to dubstep when you listen to _vaporwave?_ ”

“It’s relaxing,” Matt says with a perfectly straight face as he continues to read. Foggy can’t tell what he’s reading. He likes to think that Matt owns a massive stock of erotic novellas printed in braille, and that whenever Foggy thinks he’s reading his textbooks like the nerd he is, it’s actually some sort of incredibly fucked up BDSM furry hentai adventure. It’s probably actually supplementary law reading. “And I figured it was obvious? Vaporwave is lavender. Some songs feel red. Some feel blue. Some feel magenta, or chartreuse – “

“Did you just say _chartreuse_?”

“I don’t actually have any chartreuse music. Any bright neon colors, really.”

”Dude, I don’t even know what chartreuse looks like. Please, Matthew, expound on what chartreuse is.”

Matt’s hands still and he actually looks like he’s picked up the blatant disbelief in Foggy’s voice. “It’s a green but turned up to ten. Do you know what nightcore is?”

“Is it a color.” By the rules of the English language, it’s a question, but the dripping sarcasm converts it to a statement. It might not even deserve punctuation, actually.

“If you’re just going to be a prick, I don’t have to explain anything,” Matt snorts, rolling his eyes. Foggy can’t actually see his eyes, but he knows they’re being rolled.

“Just a second,” Foggy says, before opening Matt’s browser and heading to youtube. “Nightcore. Is that night like Batman is the, or a la King Arthur? Core like apple, or peace?”

“Batman’s the dark knight, but also the straight up night, so that’s a really terrible way to specify. Nightcore. N-I-G-H-T-C-O-R-E. Nightcore.”

“Congrats, you win the spelling bee,” Foggy says, ignoring JAWS as it tells him every letter he hits. “This has six million views, I’m clicking it.”

“ _nightcore hyphen dollhouse,_ ” JAWS announces robotically.

It sounds…like a song. But sped up and pitched up. “How is this different from chipmunking?” Foggy asks after a moment.

“Chipmunking is done for humorous effect, and also is pink. Nightcore is just about changing the feel of a song. Usually taking something that…feels…pastel? And making it neon. Green, usually. So, chartreuse.”

“Oh, good, I was worried you were going to make sense there for a minute.”

Matt huffs as Foggy closes out of the window. “Well you _asked_ what chartreuse is!”

“How is _that_ chartreuse?”

Now he looks thrown. “It just _is_ – the sky is blue, grass is green, that song is chartreuse. That’s how it feels.”

Foggy looks up what color chartreuse is on his phone. It’s ugly. “Well, good news, you’re right about something ugly being an ugly color. Shit, I got so distracted by your stupid categories I didn’t even look to see what you _have_ – “

“How else would I organize my music?”

“Genre? Artist name alphabetically?” He clicks through a ‘soft green’ playlist. Sufjan Stevens, Moldy Peaches, Fleet Foxes…

“That’s stupid.”

Orange – Janelle Monae, Offspring, fun., Nicki Minaj – “Not as stupid as this.” Sky blue – Bastille, Youngblood Hawke, Regina Spektor. Different from ‘Indigo,’ which has… _different_ Sufjan Stevens songs, Mountain Goats, alt-j. “Hey, what color is this – “ he pulls out his phone and thumbs until he finds the right song.

“ _We’re no strangers to love…you know the rules –_ “ Foggy drops his phone as Matt’s pillow collides unerringly with his face.

“It’s an ugly sort of burnt orange, like an unwelcome pillow to the face,” Matt says with a truly devious grin. “Do I have anything you want or no?”

Well, that question has multiple answers from Foggy’s point of view, but he settles for “Yeah, I’m taking all of your orange and replacing it with fucking _nightcore._ ” Matt makes a face like he’s just swallowed an entire lemon. “Actually probably some of the stuff in orange, though. Maybe some blue.”

“I’m putting all of my lavender music on your phone for April Fool’s Day,” Matt replies. “Give me my pillow.”

 

 

Matt’s color coding doesn’t come up again for a few months, until the holiday season. Foggy’s doing his Christmas shopping, and has dragged Matt along. Matt likes to pretend he doesn’t like shopping. He prefers not having lots of _things_ , but it is nice to sometimes go along and just touch things he’s not used to feeling.

“Okay, I’m gonna give you two ties, and I promise both of them are horrendously ugly. But I need you to pick one of them, so that when my uncle asks why _this,_ I can say that my blind friend picked it out with a straight face.”

Matt laughs and feels each tie in turn. One catches slightly on his nails, and is a little bit scratchy against the hyper-sensitive tips of his fingers. He doesn’t really like it. It feels like a ruddy red shade. The other is smoother, but has rough seams. Green.

He holds out the red one. “This one, no doubt.”

“Oh man, I was hoping you’d say that,” Foggy laughs. “It has lightbulbs on it. Some of them are on, some of them aren’t, but they’re all wearing sunglasses, and it’s this awful like. Neon green.” He snorts. “Chartreuse.”

“I’ve expanded your color vocabulary,” Matt says sagely. “Truly an achievement for the blind community.”

“And the spirits did it all in one night.”

“I’ve really done Tiny Tim proud. God Bless Us, Every One.”

Foggy cackles and pats Matt on the back. It feels nice. “Come on, I need you to feel some shit and tell me what’s the softest.” He takes Matt’s elbow and leads him to the checkout counter.

The clerk reacts…somehow…to the apparently horrendous tie, and Matt pretends not to notice Foggy mouthing something (“His idea,” maybe?) and gesturing at him. The clerk snorts softly in response.

Matt has no clue what store they head to next, but it smells like wax, perfume, dye, and flecks of cardboard. The scratchiness of glitter is on almost _everything_ , and when the heater kicks on, its hot air is interrupted by crackle of artificial plastic garland.

Foggy leads him to…bedding? “Okay, I need the softest blanket this place has to offer. Technically we’re not supposed to open zippers and actually _feel_ things, but I’ve been practicing crying on demand, and you can get away with anything if you just pout a little bit and turn up the charm.”

“We’re future lawyers, Foggy, we can’t break the _laws,_ ” Matt hisses overdramatically, but he’s already collapsed his cane and felt his way to the shelves. Foggy shushes him, equally overdramatic, and then opens a plastic snap.

It seems to take _hours_ before Foggy is certain they’ve found the softest, warmest, coziest, nicest-smelling blanket, and Matt has to talk him out of “triple checking at anywhere else in the area.”

Every time Matt thinks they’ve narrowed their selection down to two, maybe three blankets, Foggy finds six more for Matt to feel, just to be safe. And once he’s picked one out (“Foggy. I’ve never felt anything as soft as this. I’m pretty sure angels swaddle their newborns in blankets like this.”), Foggy worries that it isn’t warm enough (“For what? You haven’t said who it’s for, unless it’s for a perpetually hypothermic geriatric it’ll be warm enough.”), or that it smells funky (“It smells like it’s been in plastic packaging, Foggy. Just toss it in the dryer with some, like, cloves and other nice smelling stuff for ten minutes.”).

Finally Foggy is satisfied, and Matt insists on carrying it to checkout. It is, after all, the softest blanket he’s ever felt. He’s going to hold onto it for as long as possible.

“Don’t you wanna know what color it is?” Foggy asks as they leave the store. They went to Manhattan to do the shopping, and are going to have to take the subway back.

“It’s periwinkle,” Matt says without hesitating.

“What, no, it’s gray.”

“Oh, I meant like. The way it feels. Like with music.”

“Isn’t… _periwinkle_ …fucking vaporwave?”

Matt knows that Foggy was just pretending to still hate vaporwave, and that he has totally copied Matt’s lavender folder over to his own computer. He doesn’t say anything, because Foggy keeps the volume in his earbuds low enough that Matt really _shouldn’t_ be able to hear it, but still. He knows.

“Nah, vaporwave is lavender. Periwinkle is white noise.”

“Shouldn’t it be periwinkle noise then?” Matt swings his cane just a little bit too hard and smacks Foggy’s leg. It’s not an accident. “Okay, Jesus, Murdock. Unnecessary. I just still don’t get the color thing.”

Matt sighs. “Feelings…feel like colors. White noise is relaxing and comforting and all-encompassing, and it’s also periwinkle. I can’t explain why, it’s not something I’ve ever _tried_ to explain? Ugly things are ugly colors. Nice things are nice colors.”

“But why _colors_? How do you know you’re not, like, putting the totally wrong color on something? You think something’s blue but it’s like. A hideous orange.”

“I saw color for nine years, Foggy. If anything I’d get blue and indigo mixed up, but entire different color families? No way.”

“You do realize that’s not normal, right?” Foggy has a weird note in his voice, not one he can really explain. “Is it like, that hallucination thing you told me about?”

“Charles Bonnet Syndrome, and no, that’s completely different. I don’t _see_ the colors, I feel them. And it’s not always rational. Nine feels pinkish, bees sound like. Vermillion.”

“Bees sound green?”

“Vermillion is an orange-red, Foggy.”

“…Pokemon lied to me.”

“You’re lavender,” Matt says quietly. Foggy doesn’t respond for a moment, but his heartbeat picks up just a little bit.

“I…” he says and then Matt _hears_ the click when he blinks. An aggressive blink then. “Are you telling me I’m the same color as _vaporwave?_ ” He stops, and Matt laughs and leans against the nearest wall until Foggy’s ready to keep walking.

“Sure are. It’s a compliment, I promise.”

“Oh, thanks, buddy…a compliment, to sound like _elevator_ music. Heard from the outside of the elevator. With tacky Japanese titles and roman statues and shit…”

“You know you love it.”

“ _God_ , Murdock, you drive me crazy.” He’s shaking his head, Matt can hear the swish of his hair. (It’s also lavender, but with more of a blue tinge.)

It’s partially a lie. Foggy isn’t always lavender, it’s just his…base color. When he’s being a way Matt can only really qualify as _Foggy_ , he’s a startlingly clear yellow, the sort of color that Matt can’t really remember ever actually seeing with his eyes. He never really liked the color yellow, it always felt out of place. Kind of like a lemon, but lemons are, well, chartreuse. And when Foggy’s being yellow, Matt feels warm and _pink._

The next time Matt thinks Foggy feels that amazing shade of yellow is right before Foggy leaves for break. Matt wakes up with a meticulously wrapped present on his desk, and feels it for a while. Soft. Clothes, maybe? It smells a bit like cinnamon and allspice.

Matt had softly said a week or so ago he didn’t want a present, Foggy had a big enough family without worrying about getting his _roommate_ a present, but Foggy had just huffed and said it was too damn bad, since he’d already gotten Matt one. Matt had also already gotten Foggy a present, but he didn’t need to know that.

Foggy’s still asleep, so Matt climbs out of bed and gets his present for Foggy out. It’s an iPod. Foggy’s phone is, reportedly, the world’s dumbest smart phone, and has no room for music. Given how he’s almost always listening to something on his computer, though, it’s obvious that he could totally use something actually portable.

And if Matt’s loaded it up with vaporwave in a playlist simple named “Because You’re Lavender” before carefully resealing the package, well, Foggy will find out. It took him six tries to get it wrapped in a way he thinks makes sense, and Marci said it looked cute.

He puts it on Foggy’s desk before climbing back into bed and dozing until he hears Foggy’s breathing change as he wakes up.

“Good morning,” Matt says cheerfully, and Foggy groans and rolls over. Pauses.

“You didn’t open your present yet?”

“I wanted to wait so you could open yours at the same time,” he says, gesturing toward’s Foggy desk.

Foggy yawns and sits up, and then freezes. “My pres - Did you wrap this yourself?” he asks, and there’s a laugh in his throat. Matt groans and can feel himself blushing.

“Is it that obvious?”

“The wrapping paper’s inside out, Matt,” he chuckles. Marci had said it looked _cute_ , he should have guessed.

“Don’t judge me,” he says, sniffing. “Open it.”

“Open yours first. I put it there last night so that you would open it before me.”

“What if we open them at the same time?”

“Uh…” his heart speeds up. “Sure. Worth a shot.”

Matt raises his eyebrows and tries to approximate eye contact. He’s not wearing his glasses – he feels comfortable enough with just Foggy around to keep them off. “Count of three?”

It turns out that the reason Foggy’s heart had sped up was because he had made it impossible for them to open at the same time. Under the top layer of wrapping paper was _another_ layer, with a truly unholy amount of packing tape keeping it sealed.

“I was hoping you would wake me up trying to open it!” Foggy, who didn’t even pretend to open his present when the countdown finished, laughs as Matt wrestles with it.

Matt laughs, too, and eventually winds up using his teeth to get through some of the more stubborn tape. Finally he breaks through, and –

And the softest blanket Matt’s ever felt tumbles onto his lap. He freezes, instantly recognizing it. It’s even been put through the dryer with cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg…

“Holy shit, Fog,” he mutters, splaying his hands in the fabric. “I can’t – “

“You can and you will,” Foggy says sharply, though his heart is pounding. “Your sheets suck, dude. And I know you hate them.”

Matt half-laughs, half-chokes-in-disbelief, and pulls the blanket over his shoulders. It feels like literal heaven. He never wants to let go of this blanket. Soft periwinkle settles over him. Stick would probably want to burn it. Somehow that just makes Matt love it more. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t…even begin to thank you enough. Now open yours before I strangle you.”

Foggy snorts and rips the paper – “Buddy this wrapping paper was totally cool, too – holy shit is this an iPod?”

Matt beams. “Now you can listen to music without your laptop!”

“No way, this is amazing! It’s green – did you know that it’s green?” Matt nods, still smiling. Foggy’s genuinely happy, he sounds like he might actually be close to crying. “32 gigs, dude, this is so goddamn cool – shit, sorry, is that like, extra bad this close to JC’s b-day?”

“I’m not sure calling Jesus ‘JC’ _doesn’t_ qualify as taking the lord’s name in vain, actually,” Matt mutters. “Have you turned it on?”

“I haven’t even opened the box – don’t tell me it’s actually full of, like, bees.”

“Not bees, wasps.”

“Sweet.” He opens the box – good, he didn’t notice it had been tampered with. Matt hears the crackle of thin plastic and burrows a little bit deeper into his blanket. It’s so soft, it’s probably the nicest thing he’s ever owned. “This is so cool, I can’t believe you did this.”

Matt actually laughs at that. “I can’t believe you did _this!_ ” He wriggles in the blanket as punctuation. “You literally took me shopping for my own Christmas present!”

“Hey, it worked – wait, there’s already something on this…” Matt freezes and tries not to look too guilty. “You didn’t. Matthew Michael _Maurice_ Murdock.”

He broke out the confirmation name. Yikes.

“What? I didn’t do anything! The box was still sealed!”

“Come here, you – “ Foggy tackles him, and the fall back onto the bed, and Matt pulls his new blanket over his head and wraps it tightly around himself, but it’s not thick enough to protect him from Foggy _tickling_ him. He kicks and screeches until he manages to get some leverage and straddles Foggy with his arms pinned over his head.

He _hears_ the moment Foggy’s heart stutters and his breathing changes. Matt panics, just a little, and rolls off of Foggy. “Now that I’ve got you here, seriously, feel this.” He pulls the blanket over both of them, and pretends they aren’t essentially cuddling.

“Wow,” Foggy mutters, running his hands along the blanket. He’s still about six degrees warmer than usual, but Matt thinks they’ve got an opportunity to save face – and then Foggy kisses him on the cheek. “You’ve got great taste.”

Matt smiles, but he’s got no clue how to respond. Kiss Foggy back? Cheek or lips? Hug him? Tell him that Foggy means the world to him? Start humming something from Floral Shoppe (フローラルの専門店)? He ends up gently pecking Foggy on the cheek and turning so that he’s more efficiently the little spoon.

“Your train doesn’t leave for six hours, right?” he asks, quietly, and Foggy nods against his neck.

Foggy’s never felt more yellow. He’s practically the sun.

 

 

The first thing Foggy says once they’ve come back from break is “Synesthesia.”

“Bless you,” Matt replies dryly as he stubs his toe on Foggy’s suitcase.

“No, it’s the word for your stupid color shit,” Foggy says. He drags his suitcase out of the way. “And I’ll get that, don’t worry.”

“There’s a word?” Matt looks surprised, it’s kind of nice to catch him off guard once in a while.

“Yep,” Foggy says cheerfully. “I’ve got a cousin who hears specific notes as colors.”

“Huh,” Matt blinks. “That’s neat.” He’s returned to his bed. He got back the day before, having spent his winter break volunteering at his old orphanage. Foggy had _meant_ to get back the same day, but his train was switched around a million times and delayed so far back that he just ended up getting on one the next day. “At least it confirms I’m not crazy.”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” Foggy says with a grin as he moves the pile of clothes in his suitcase to his dresser. “How’s the blanket?”

Matt’s wearing it like a cloak. “I’m going to end up taking it to class, Foggy. You’ve ruined my cool outward persona. I can’t maintain it knowing that I could have this with me instead.” He puts an earbud in and continues listening to whatever the hell he was listening to. “How’s the iPod?”

“Fully loaded, and cleansed of your vaporwave taint.” That is a bold-faced lie. He listens to Matt’s stupid fucking playlist while he sleeps. Matt chuckles.

“If you say so.” Damn, he wasn’t smooth enough.

He finishes packing and then flops down next to Matt, who tosses the blanket so that it covers both of them. “Whatcha listening to?”

“Spanish lessons,” Matt replies, offering the other earbud. Foggy politely declines, and leans up against Matt.

He hadn’t really… _meant_ to kiss him right before break. It had just sort of happened. And it wasn’t even on the lips, but Matt had reciprocated, and then they’d _cuddled_ for hours, and it was the nicest few hours Foggy had ever experienced. And now he doesn’t know what to do. He’s got an on-again-off-again thing with Marci, and he’s never really had much _luck_ dating guys. And he’s like ninety-eight percent certain Matt’s into weird dungeon sex and getting flogged.

Though, Foggy thinks as he watches Matt mouth Spanish words with complete focus, he could probably get into weird dungeon sex if that’s what Matt wanted. He’s so… _pretty._ Sex has always been more of an auxiliary thing for him, anyways. It’s nice, and he enjoys it, but he can do without.

“Are we going to go anywhere with this whole cuddling thing?” Matt asks suddenly, breaking the illusion of focus, and Foggy chokes on his own breathing, which makes Matt make that face he makes when he’s worried but isn’t sure what to do. “If you’re good with just cuddling I am too, I mean, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted anything more and I don’t know if I do, and I’m really bad at dating - “

“Wait, you’re _bad_ at dating? You’ve had like six girlfriends since I met you!” Foggy needs to find someone willing to do brain surgery and fix whatever broken connections make him bring up Matt’s various ridiculously hot girlfriends when Matt’s asking if he wants an actual relationship.

“Which kind of illustrates my point,” Matt mutters, popping out his earbud.

“I…I don’t know, buddy,” Foggy says. Might as well go for honesty. “I don’t know why I kissed you. I kind of assumed you were like, one hundred percent straight.”

Matt snorts lightly. “Yeah, no. Remember Aditya?”

“Aditya from Punjabi? No way!” Aditya was about seven feet tall, wore a turban, and had a beard. He was also one of the most beautiful men Foggy had ever seen, with a musical voice and a bright smile.

“What did you think we were doing? Studying? He’s an IR major, Foggy – he’s an undergrad!”

“Wait, you dated an undergrad?”

“A _senior_ , Foggy, he was like two months younger than me!”

“You absolute cougar, you – “ Foggy mutters. “I can’t believe your magic-knowing-when-girls-are-hot applies to guys, too, that is _so_ unfair.”

“It applies to you,” Matt says in an impressively small voice, and Foggy blinks. No way Matt thinks he’s hot. No fucking way.

“Well,” Foggy says slowly, “my magic-knowing-when-guys-and-girls-are-hot, aka my eyes and brain, apply to you, too.” Matt smiles softly.

“Kind of got that vibe within two minutes of meeting you, honestly.”

Foggy flinches. Another reason to find an experimental brain surgeon. God, he’s so awkward, how the hell could Matt be willing to even entertain a relationship with him? “Yeah, sorry about that, I promise I can still taste my foot in my mouth.”

“It’s fine,” Matt says, still smiling. It’s awfully warm. Probably the world’s softest blanket, still over both of them. “Um,” Matt continues, eloquently, before leaning and kissing him.

It was probably supposed to be on the mouth, but he misses and ends up more of on Foggy’s chin. Foggy panics, and then thinks _fuck it_ , and moves to catch Matt’s mouth with his own. Matt wastes no time in rewarding him for his superior aim.

When they pull apart, Matt grins. “You don’t taste like foot. You taste like the sun.” As smooth as that line is, his face is bright pink.

“I didn’t quite get a color from that kiss,” Foggy says in his most serious voice. “I think we’re going to have to try again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Matt's synesthesia is basically my own, since I dunno how to write any other kinds. It's emotion -> color. Calming things are lavender. I also only used colors I learned from Blue's Clues because that's where I learned most of my color names.  
> Also I headcanon Matt as demiromantic bisexual, and Foggy as biromantic demisexual. Just. FYI.


End file.
